The bestselling author Jeffrey Archer once again astonishes, delights, and electrifies with this collection, Twelve Red Herrings.

Archer, the internationally bestselling author of Honor Among Thieves and Kane &Abel, serves up this inventive collection of a dozen short stories -- with a twist. Cleverly styled, with richly drawn characters and ingeniously plotted story lines, each of the twelve pieces ends with a delightfully unexpected turn of events.

An imprisoned man is certain that his supposed murder victim is very much alive....A female driver is pursued relentlessly by a menacing figure in another vehicle....A young artist gets the biggest break of her career....A restless beauty manages the perfect birthday celebration....An escaped Iraqi on Saddam Hussein's death list pays an involuntary visit to his homeland. In each tale, human beings are given an opportunity to seize, a crucial problem to solve, or a danger to avoid. How will they react? How would you? Capping off the collection are two additional rewards. In the final story, Archer offers a choice of four endings. And buried in each story is another diversion -- a red herring which Archer challenges his readers to uncover.

Archer does a passable O. Henry in his third story collection (after A Twist in the Tale ), though without that master's depth of feeling or irony. Many of the 12 stories here, all of which feature false clues and twist endings, are based on "known" incidents; the fact that the weakest ones are not suggests that Archer's love of plot may exceed his unaided grasp. The leadoff yarn, "Trial and Error," for instance, an original but attenuated tale of a wronged man's thirst for revenge, kicks in only with its predictably wry twist. Also original but flaccid is the last story, which features four rather obvious alternative endings that the reader can tack onto an opening gambit about a man picking up a woman at the theater. The adaptive tales are generally stronger. "Chunnel Vision" offers a classic red herring by which Archer uses a jilted woman's revenge on her lover to divert our attention from the real threat to the lover's happiness. Similarly, the chilling "Never Stop on the Motorway" plays on our expectations about an endangered woman's plight. Written in strong, clean prose and ranging in tone from charming to achingly suspenseful, these tales, mostly entertaining but often slight, offer, like much of Archer's work, more craft than art. $365,000 ad/promo; audio rights to HarperAudio.

Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

There's probably not a red herring among these stories from master spy writer Archer.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.